


Ev'ry Glance, Into The Sun

by piecesofalice



Category: Deadwood
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:56:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofalice/pseuds/piecesofalice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's standing in the ashes/At the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ev'ry Glance, Into The Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jesshelga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesshelga/gifts).



\---

  
_She's standing in the ashes  
At the end of the world_   
\- 'Four Winds', Bright Eyes

  
\---

  
Joanie Stubbs sits on the end of her bed and looks out the window.

  
Dressed for the day, she looks to the sun and tries to look straight into the centre. She can't, of course, her eyes pulling closed as she fingers the note in her hand that explains why, again, she is left alone and dressed for an occasion she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to attend.

  
There was never a time, really, honestly, when she didn't feel the heavy head of loneliness on her shoulder. With Cy, by his side, pimping and hustling; with Jane, who tried so hard to attempt normalcy, but in the end, was as lonely as her.

  
Joanie guesses she always knew Jane would go. Their nights spent intimately seemed bittersweet at the best of times, the reluctance of the other woman to accept their dealt hand and the itchy feet of a drunk overwhelmed the situation so much that Joanie would find herself watching the world wake up instead of holding on to the nights they had left.

  
She places the note that says goodbye without saying hello under her pillow and tries to impossibly forget about it.

  
Like looking into the sun.

  
\---

  
It's Sunday morning, and she's attempting normalcy. Holding her bag, clutching her skirts, she maneuvers around the shit and muck to make a path to Utter Mail and Freight. A fight breaks out to her left, a merchant screams about elk hide and soap, and Joanie's ears are drowned out with the sounds of a life left wanting.

  
"Charlie," she says, with as little gusto as she can muster, and he knows straight away. Because he always knows, when it comes to Jane, and his eyes hold so much pity she has to turn away into his shoulder.

  
\---

  
It's not hard work, the freight business. A stamp, a press of paper against pen, a spill of ink from a broken nib and the occasional complaint from the stuffy city folk who've moved down the creek in an attempt to cash in on Deadwood's growing status. That's all it is, and she's managing a fucking smile every now and again, and that keeps Charlie happy.

  
She's good at keeping others happy.

  
In the mornings, she wanders to the bank with the little cash on hand Charlie's business creates, and avoids conversation with the Widow Ellsworth. Lunch is an apple and piece of cured meat, with strong coffee Lilah brings her from her new, safe, clean post at the ladies' material shop that has appeared on the edge of town. The afternoons are busiest, as they send their freight away on the backs of horses and Joanie stares into the dust they kick up and wonder if the next delivery will bring news of Jane.

  
She doesn't stare for long, because her skirts begin to feel heavy and she's afraid of the fact she no longer remembers Jane's face as well as she used to.

  
\---

  
He's taller than he appears from a distance, Mister Silas Adams is, and Joanie frowns at his apparent skulking around Charlie's shop front. Finally, after minutes of hodge-podging, Joanie calls out to him and is surprised to hear her voice so loud.

  
"Afternoon, Miss Stubbs. I was just wonderin' if a letter, or package may have come for me this day?"

  
Joanie knows that something, a letter addressed in bad hand and in a cheap envelope, has arrived; but still she makes a great show of looking in hopes Mr. Adams may step over the threshold.

  
He's still peering in, twisting his hands into balls, when she holds up his letter in reply.

  
"Y'know, Mr. Adams, you may step inside. Charlie Utter won't mind."

  
"Of course. Thank you." He's overly polite. Her skin feels warm, and her corset tight. The thoroughfare seems strangely quiet. "I apologise, Miss Stubbs. Although," he ducks down to her eye-line, "I'm not entirely sure we've officially met."

  
"Joanie Stubbs, sir."

  
"Silas Adams. Pleased to meet you."

  
They grin at each other, insanely, no doubt, at the inanity of their introductions before Charlie bursts through the door muttering nonsense and Joanie has to remember that she and this man are strangers.

  
"I need you to sign for it here, if you mind."

  
"Of course," and he does, before taking the letter and pocketing it. "Thanking you kindly, Miss Stubbs. Good day."

  
"And you, Mr. Adams," and Joanie wonders why she's slightly down hearted at seeing his retreating figure walk through the door.

  
\---

  
It's closer to the end of the sun, when Joanie walks back towards the boarding house with her shoes half-untied. Past the newspaper, past The Gem, where business is booming and a half-hidden figure almost scares her half to death when it appears in front of her.

  
"Evening, Miss Stubbs."

  
"Mr. Adams." She holds her hand to her chest, and tries to regain her modesty. "Evenin'."

  
"I frightened you. I apologise, I was just waitin' for the night to begin and I saw you, and wanted to thank you for your help this afternoon."

  
He's not a man that says much, and he seems almost out of breath when he finishes his sentence.

  
"Oh, it ain't nothing, just doing my job. I hope it was good news."

  
He's narrowed his eyes at her, the horribly piercing eyes of a watcher set into a face that's weathered and in need of a good trim. Joanie thinks of the sun she'd tried so hard to look into when Jane left, and her mind aches with the concentration required to have a normal conversation with a man who isn't (seemingly) after pussy or dope or fresh fucking rhubarb pie.

  
"Fine news. Nothing of note, just family rabblin'."

  
"They're...?"

  
"Out of Chicago. Just my Ma, now. And a sister."

  
"You must miss them terribly."

  
"Of course. Like a fucking ache, if you excuse my language."

  
The sounds of whoring and drinking spill out behind him, and she's afraid of someone who seems to be such a part of that world, yet so far removed from it.

  
She doesn't try to play the game where bad men could be good, because she's lost so many times before, so she smiles her best whore smile and begs the Lord to let her leave the presence of this second-hand henchman with watcher's eyes and a family he loves.

  
"I best be goin'."

  
"May I escort you back to your rooms, Miss Stubbs?"

  
Joanie tries to remember they're strangers, and says yes.

  
\---

  
It continues much in this way, for a month or so before Joanie realises that Silas Adams is courting her. Rough, throat-slittin', Swearengen-workin' Silas Adams, his hands doing the twisty-ball motion she noticed that first morning at Utter Mail and Freight, his nervousness drawing her feet further into her boots with tension and making her stomach turn over with emotion.

  
They never touch on the subject, of course, in their walks to and from her post at Charlie's, at their short lunches where he brings her canned peaches from Al Swearengen's place and never, ever when she sees him coming back with Dority and Burns from a job and she's crossing back from the bank.

  
There, it's just a tip of the hat and a rush of feet, and her toes ache from holding them so tight as if to remind her why it would be better than anything else to nip this strongly and firmly in the bud and embrace the cold loneliness that seems to subside whenever she's walking by his side.

  
But when he offers her his arm, at close of business that very same day she watches him come back from a kill, she realises that this man is only a stranger to her because he's so much like Cy and the others she's known, without being like them at all.

  
\---

  
It's the first day of the new year, when he visits her unannounced with a ring in his hand. A simple band, a matching one for him, and she goes with him to Yankton that very day to finalise their union. There are no flowers, no songs; just her and this impossible man with watcher's eyes and a priest who seems disappointed they haven't any family present.

  
It's in Yankton, down the creek from the place where they're so well known, that Joanie follows Silas to bed in the room he checked them into under their newly entwined names.

  
She doesn't expect him to be gentile, but of course he is. Spending enough time for the sun to pass their window, he undresses her, garment by garment until he reaches her under-draws and camisole. Hands run along the cotton, fingers lace through the ribbons that had been tightened across her chest and she sighs, turning back to him and undressing him in much the same way.

  
He's foreign and familiar, and she'd forgotten what a male looks like naked so she kisses him so she doesn't have to look at him. Hands on her waist, a place she hasn't been touched in such a while and she responds because it's both parts comforting and sensual.

  
She whispers how she hasn't been with a man since Cy, and he buries his head in her shoulder.

  
"I don't care if you don't love me, Joanie. All I care is that you let me protect you."

  
It seems so silly, so much like the stories the other girls at the Bella Union used to read and fill their heads with that Joanie almost laughs. And she's sure she would have, if she knew he wasn't sincere and that men like Silas Adams didn't use words unwisely and actions always required a response, and if she knew she was so unprepared for these words they almost stung.

  
She turns and pushes her back into his chest, and holds his hands to her stomach, up over her breasts and onto her neck, before letting him undress her completely and lay her onto the bed.

  
She responds, and she's surprised, and something so close to pleasure it's confusing leads her to lay against the bed when they are done and just stare at the mid-afternoon sun that spills in their window.

  
The sheet is pulled over her, and he holds her like he understands, and for a moment they're husband and wife, not knife-for-hire and whore, and she smiles against the loneliness and their attempt to defy it.

  
\---

  
They go back to Deadwood and tell no-one, because of Cy and Al and the cuts it could cause. They continue their walks in the morning and afternoon, he continues his work and she does as well, all the while thinking of different things like the advertisement screaming Jane's performances in Chicago and a house far up in the Black Hills away from the dirt of Deadwood.

  
\---

  
The baby growing inside her forces them to show their hand, and they are announced as husband and wife in the office of Al Swearengen.

  
Al nods, offers his proper congratulations and pours them shots of whiskey. He gifts them $1000 and a plot of land, and it's the hand of a genuine man that tentatively touches her swollen belly months later.

  
Cy pounds on her door, but it's _their_ door now and Silas sends him away with his tail between his legs and she tries not to cry, out of relief and old habits.

  
Lilah offers her services in choosing swaddling and items for the child, and Joanie smiles at the girl who barely resembles the one she knew; once high on dope and being fucked by johns, who now glows with promise and gentile optimism at the new life growing inside her.

  
The Widow Ellsworth draws her into conversation when Joanie frequents the bank, and Trixie smiles from behind the counter and offers advice about names and colours, and Joanie smiles as her intimacy with these two women grows along with her stomach.

  
Charlie just smiles, and Joanie wonders if he already knew this was the life she was going to have, and accepts the awkward hug from the only man who looked at her like a daughter.

  
Jane never responds to the wire Joanie sends her, and Joanie can no longer separate her memories from the drawings of a wild-eyed frontier woman in the pages of the _Pioneer_.

  
\---

  
Joanie Stubbs sits on the edge of her bed and looks out the window over the Black Hills.

  
The sun is bright, as it streams into the room her husband built for her along side ex-sheriffs and pioneers. She's dressed for the day, a whore in wife's clothing, and the heavy weight of loneliness tries to force its self onto her.

  
She walks to her dressing table, and opens a tiny box among many, pulling out the note Jane left her so long ago. Time has yellowed it, slightly, the rough paper crinkled from nights under a restless head and the clutched hands of a lost woman.

  
Joanie doesn't read it, just holds it, before placing it back into the box and looking out the window again. She smells the wet earth below her, not fear, and feels the seasons for the first time in her life.

  
Her three year old son with the eyes of a man she knew was a reformed devil rushes in, with his father at his heels, and Joanie lifts the child to her chest. He feels like nothing else, and everything good and well to a woman who knew nothing but brothels and sadness, and she kisses his round, soft cheeks and smiles.

  
Joanie looks up into watcher's eyes, and it's like looking into the sun.

  
\---

_Fin._

\---


End file.
